Building Organizations, Creating a Culture & Dealing with Adversity
A brief snapshot of Chairman Mike Gill’s interview with John Schuerholz, President of the Atlanta Braves and
Bill Miller, Chairman of Legg Mason Capital Management
This is Mike Gill. I am the Chairman of Evergreen Advisors. I’m here with John Schuerholz and Bill Miller.
John Schuerholz is president of the Atlanta Braves and has been since 2007. He was GM for 17 years prior to the promotion to president. Prior to that, John was with the Kansas City Royals for 22 years, 9 as General Manager. John has been involved with three championship teams: the ‘85 Royals, ‘95 Braves, and our hometown Baltimore Orioles in 1966.
Bill Miller is Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Legg Mason Capital Management. Bill co-managed the Legg Mason value trust fund since its inception. From 1991 to 2005, the value trust beat the S&P 500 15 consecutive years. Smart Money called Bill Miller among the top 30 most influential people in investing. Money magazine called Miller the greatest money manger of the 90’s.
I want to start this interview off with a Lou Holtz quote which I think is fitting because what brought us together was this incredible streak between 1991 and 2005 of two individuals in their respective industries. It might be fair to say that it won’t be topped again. But Lou Holtz said something along these lines, “I’ve been on the top, I’ve been on the bottom and I’m probably gonna be in both places again”. Let’s talk about the streak for just a couple of minutes.
{Mike Gill} Bill let’s talk about ‘91 to 2005. When all of a sudden did you say to yourself, “This is pretty interesting. What’s going on with our effectiveness with the value trust fund?”
{Bill Miller} I would say probably by 1997 or 1998, in investing just as in baseball, it’s a business about numbers and statistics and so there’s a lot of data on performance and on streaks, winners and losers and the longest streaks tended to be 7 or 8 years and then they would die out after that. So when we got to the 7 or 8 year level people started writing about it and about the streak and that happened to coincide back in 1998 when I was named manager of the year. So, there was a lot of publicity that began to come around at that point in time and it sort of built from there and it was one of the funny things that after a while as they kept ticking off the years, the press started saying things like, “Gee, do you feel like you are under a lot of pressure and won’t it be better when the streak ends so people won’t pay you so much attention and won’t you be happier then?” And it made me laugh because I said ok so this is your question right, “When I do badly I’m going to feel good?” Is that what you’re saying? So, our job is to try and do well every time out like in baseball and try and win them all. And you can’t do that of course but it wasn’t a great time with the streak ended, that’s for sure, but you have to go back then to Lou Holtz’s point, it’s one of those things where in this business as in sports, sometimes you are fortunate and do very well and other times things don’t go so well and you’ve got to deal with adversity. And dealing with adversity is obviously a challenging experience but it is also a great time to learn.
{Mike Gill} Hey John, same thing. It was incredible ‘91 to 2005, especially when you took over an enterprise, a franchise that had so many pieces that had to get fixed.
{John Schuerholz} True Mike, there were pieces that needed to be fixed, substantial pieces, but there had also been pieces put in place, before my arrival, by then general manager, Bobby Cox, who went to the field and became our manager, just prior to my taking over as general manager, but there was a lot of work to do. But having had the opportunity to cut my teeth in some great organizations, the Baltimore Orioles for three years and then twenty-three years with the expansion Kansas City Royals, who got to the playoffs faster than any other expansion team had done up until that time, I was prepared with a philosophy of team building, organization building, and an outline of what I knew had to be done and so we went about that work and got most of that done pretty quickly. And in fact, worst to first, going from last place, the Braves had finished last place the three previous years prior to my joining them. We went from last place to becoming the “outdoor world champions” in 1991. I say that because we played the Minnesota Twins, who played, up until this year, in that horrible Metrodome, where we played baseball indoors, with the color of the inside of the roof, the same color as a baseball, with the lights aimed for football, into the eyes of the infielders and outfielders, and with the artificial turf that was so unnatural in its bounce that it was just an unnatural act to play baseball. Anyway, we went from worst to first and we were able to put a real good streak together for fifteen years. And as Bill suggested, in any business if you can stay at the top of whatever your enterprise happens to be for that period of time, there is something good in place, whether it’s a plan or vision, leadership or good people, it worked.
Listen to the interview:
[audio:EvergreenJuly2010.mp3]Click Here to Download the Entire Interview with John and Bill (PDF)